Samhain Publishing

In Jaci Burton’s, UNWRAPPED Amy’s kind of fantasies wouldn’t cut it in the straight-laced law firm where she’s fought her way to partnership. And she refuses to let a younger man use her to advance in the firm. Justin might be brilliant, gorgeous and sexy, but he’s firmly implanted in the look-but-don’t-touch realm. Until a corporate acquisition in Hawaii over Christmas gives Justin the opportunity to show Amy he’s interested in her as a woman. And he has the ideal plan to help unwrap the perfect Christmas gift for Amy.

In Lauren Dane’s, TO DO LIST Since she could pick up a pencil, Belle has used lists to map out her life. But now, she realizes the life she thought she wanted exacts too high a price. Exhausted, she heads home for Christmas to make a new to-do list. She didn’t factor in Rafe, her brother’s best friend kissing her under the mistletoe! Belle finds herself with a whole new set of goals to balance with what she thought she always wanted. Rafe’s plan is to seduce Belle back home where she belongs.

Just in time for the holidays, Jaci Burton brings us a hot little Christmas story guaranteed to heat up this winter season! – CK2’s Kwips and Critiques

Unwrapped is so wonderful that I am Joyfully Recommending it and I’m off to go read more by Ms. Burton! – Joyfully Reviewed Recommended Read

UNWRAPPED is written by a pro, and I know when reading a story by Jaci Burton I will experience the best that erotic romance has to offer. UNWRAPPED rightly deserves the La Grande Mort award for an overall luscious romance and one of the best ménage a trois scenes I have read in awhile. Romance Reviews Today, La Grande Mort Award – RRT Erotic Best Book 2007

From its completely romantic beginning to its oh so sensual end, I loved every word of Lauren Dane’s To Do List. – The Romance Studio

To Do List is a story full of warmth and holiday family traditions, and it’s easy to see why Lauren Dane is such a well-loved author. You’ll definitely want to read this one. Two Lips Reviews

Lauren Dane has once again created characters that you can’t resist. Ecataromance

My name is Lauren Dane and I write romance. What’s more is that I like to read it too.

I’m not ashamed of romance. I’m not ashamed of romance covers. I would read any damned thing I wanted to on the bus and I don’t give a monnkey’s wet patootie if some stranger across the aisle from me thinks I’m dumb or filled with cooties because I have girl parts or thinks they’re smarter than I am because they read something else.

I was a hard person before I came to romance, by the way. But in the big scheme of things, trying to will the rest of the world to respect romance is at the bottom of my list. Because I don’t care. I don’t. I like what I do. I like what I read. I’m not so very well adjusted, not really, but I just don’t care if people don’t like romance.

I don’t care because firstly, preferences are the lifeblood of the universe. It’s why I could LIVE on Thai food and my dude hates it. As for the haters? Well there are people in this world who MUST have something to put down to feel up. You know that person, right? I’m all happy to snark around and joke and make fun of the look on Gywneth Paltrow’s face (does her diet include just sucking lemons all day or what? And please, some explain to me how you need to work out three hours a day to say thin when you’re on a macrobiotic diet? I tell you, I’d be sucking down twinkies and french fries by the cartload if I had to work out three hours a day. Whoops, tangent!)

So there will always be people who don’t haven enough self esteem and belief in their own abilities so they stand around and snicker about romance on their livejournal or blog or at a conference or on the bus. shrug. Whatever.

No one is going to make me feel like I have to apologize for writing an HEA if I want to. Not everything I write is romance of course, but everything I’ve sold is, LOL. And if you don’t like it, that’s totally okay because every week there are oodles of books of all kinds to choose from. Why anyone obsesses about things they don’t like and don’t read is not something I quite grasp, but I think it gets back to the whole “some people need to tear down to feel better” and okay.

We don’t all have to like the same thing. I hate Pretty Woman. HATE IT! I hate the movie, I find it insulting. But I don’t care that it’s so well loved by millions of others and I still quite like Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. It’s just fine and dandy that other people find joy in it. I hate Gone With The Wind too, by the way. I also hate eggs. I wish I liked them though because omelettes seem like they’d be very tasty (tangent again)

Anyhoodle – this gets back to PREFERENCES and FILTERS. Your preferences do not mean more than mine and vice versa. We might be different, and different does not equal bad. Read what you like. It’s sooooo very simple. Don’t read what you don’t like. Again, very simple unless you are in school and reading what you don’t like is a regular occurrence.

Anyway, not everything has to be the most important book in the world. It’s okay to like and write popular fiction. And it’s also, just a fact, IMO, that romance is always going to be made fun of so I think trying to make people who will always find a reason not to like us, like us, is a waste of time. The important people, namely our readers, like us just fine. I’m just too old to care that some random person on the bus snickers when they see the cover of my book.

To all our readers in the US – enjoy your Independence Day!! And to everyone – have a great weekend.

Lauren
www.laurendane.com

So it’s finally here! Making Chase will be available in paper this coming Tuesday and it’s already up for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

I’m thrilled with this book. It was great fun, although sad to write because it was the close of a series I just loved. It won the 2007 CAPA for Best Contemporary Romance as well as being a Recommended Read at several review sites including FAR, Joyfully Reviewed and Two Lips Reviews.

Here’s the blurb: Book Four In the Chase Brothers Series.

Tate Murphy is a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. She grew up a million miles away from the easy life Matt Chase has had. She’s spent her life pulling herself and her siblings up and out of that trailer by the railroad tracks and she hasn’t looked back. Matt Chase is a dream of a guy and she’s certainly not going to turn down a short fling with one of the most handsome men she’s ever seen!

Matt Chase has watched each one of his brothers find love and he knows he’s ready for that too. It’s all a matter of finding the woman who captures his heart. He’s certainly sampled his fair share of them but none has moved him the way Tate Murphy does when he goes to her shop to thank her for some cookies and a thank you note.

But as Matt gets to know Tate and appreciate her strength and unique beauty, he also realizes she’s got some big self esteem issues about her past. To build a future, he’s got to find a way past some big road blocks.

I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it.

As I write this it’s 2 am and I’ve danced a lot, had about eight bottles of water and my voice is already failing but so far, Romantic Times 2008 has been a lovely time.

For me, the best part of the whole week is seeing old friends and making new ones. Yesterday I was able to hang out with the lovely and fabulously talented Maya Banks and Beth Williamson. I’ve hung out with Angie and many more of the Samhain gang including Marty and Crissy.

I’ve got some new ideas brewing and yes, one of them is a holiday novella that’ll be Edward and Polly Chase’s proposal story so if you like my Chase family, you’ll see them this December.

I’m off to bed now before I pass out. You all behave and I’ll be seeing you again next week!

Lauren

Recently I’ve bumped into a lot of friends I haven’t seen in a few years. Many of them are my BR friends – “before romance” so when they see me and I fill them in on my life I get a wide variety of responses. Most of them, I’m happy to say, are joyful and interested.

There are those who have rolled their eyes. Invariably the same questions come up. Why would I waste my time writing romance? When did I plan to write a “real” book?

This response used to bother me a lot more than it does now. In truth, I’m pretty secure in what I do and who I am. I like to write romance. What could be more worthy than writing romance? Romance is part of our lives. It’s the hallmark of our interactions with other people. I write romance because I think it’s important.

Is it splitting the atom? Well, no. Will my books win the Nobel Prize for literature? No. But there is power in telling a story that allows readers to escape for a while. It’s perfectly okay to address human nature through our interactions with our romantic partners. It doesn’t mean romances aren’t important. Because they are. But important doesn’t have to always mean weighty.

I read romance for many of the same reasons I read other genres. I like to read things that transport me to another reality. A spaceship, Italy during the Renaissance, small town modern day America – whatever. Tell me a good story, make me connect with the characters and their journey and you’ve done your job as an author.

I’m not ashamed to tell the eye rollers I do write real books. And I’m not ashamed to say I write romance because I love to explore people’s inner lives and their connections to one another. For me as a writer, that medium is most often romance because I find it such a rich subject matter. Other authors have other subject areas they prefer.

What about you all? Why romance?

Lauren Dane is a multi-published author who is currently more harried than usual as she gets close to deadline. You can find out more at her website – www.laurendane.com

I’d planned on ranting about how a note home to parents in my oldest son’s backpack had grammatical errors in it and how I actually got out a pen and corrected it. But instead I’ll talk about something you might be interested in.

Much has been made about the “respectability” of the romance genre from many angles.

I’ve been puzzling over this for a bit now because I find the perspective of genre bashing incomprehensible and yet fascinating.

Romance has problems with respectability for a host of reasons. For me, chief among them is that romance is a predominantly woman fueled genre. We write it, we read it and we edit and sell it. (not that men don’t read and write it, they do, but they’re not the majority here) Our fantasies and thoughts are always demeaned as less important than those literary pursuits of men. This is not new.

Romance is viewed as silly. And you know what? A lot of it is. And who cares? Seriously. Like I need to make excuses because I want a little fluff after listening to my kids snipe at each other all day? Like it’s a crime to want something you don’t have to work too hard on at the end of a day? And you don’t think there’s fluff written for men? Come on! So he’s a detective instead of a bakery owner – and? Like the presence of a penis and a typewriter makes him more respectable? A small percentage of books that are written are important in the sense that they change the world. I like to read those too. But they’re not the only thing I want to read.

Women’s fantasies are often maligned. Should I feel bad that I write something that gives my readers a happy ending? A hero who wants to share the heroine’s troubles and doesn’t leave his beard hairs in the sink? If I’m supposed to, too bad. Because I don’t. My romance novels are supposed to be entertaining. Yes, I do hope to make people think, my books often contain larger social issues in some form, but escapism is important too.

Narrowing down another level – erotic romance is often given a beat down as ONOES the end of the world!

Women’s sexual fantasies are co-opted and dismissed. Co-opted and twisted by a lot of sexually graphic material and aimed at men. And you know, I’m not dissing men, I love men and I live with three of them (okay, not like THAT, that’s a great idea for a book though!). But most sexual material is created for men. So the women are often props instead of participants and very rarely the focus.

But erotic romance puts the spotlight on the woman and her fantasies. It celebrates the sexually independent woman who isn’t afraid of pleasure. That is threatening on many levels. In romantica, she’s the center of the action.

So of course it’s maligned and dismissed. It’s the “achilles heel” of romance, it’s the end of the genre, it’s porn, it’s dragging down the respectability of the genre (which we’ve established already has a problem with being taken seriously so it’s not a valid argument anyway). The worst thing for me is when other female romance authors make these arguments because they always strike me as specious and defensive and hostile.

We in romance are like the Mary Kay ladies. People love to make fun of the Mary Kay ladies but hello, the Mary Kay corp makes a hella big profit every year. People may make fun of romance but we dominate the market, someone’s buying our books.

So you know, I’ll take the letters I get from my readers over respectability. That’s just me. I’m a smart woman with lots of letters behind my name and I love to read and write romance. I’m not going to apologize for either and neither should anyone else. Regencies, Greek Tycoons, erotic romance, contemps about NASCAR – I don’t care, sod respectability, let’s just enjoy what we do. And really? I vote we ignore the noise from those who are so insecure they can only build themselves up by tearing other people down.

Lauren Dane
www.laurendane.com
Reading Between the Lines – Now Available!

Genre: Paranormal Romance, Red Hots!
ISBN: 1-59998-672-8
Length: Novel
Price: $5.50

Celtic language expert Haley O’Brian is thrilled when she gets the chance to translate a scroll written in Ogham, an ancient Celtic text used in magic and divination. While translating the text, she unwittingly frees Conall macCormac’s Fae soul from a millennia-old curse that kept him imprisoned in a human body, lifetime after lifetime.

The end of the curse is just the beginning of the magic for Haley and the ridiculously sexy Conall. He takes her into the world of his people, the Daoine Sidhe, where she begins to learn of her own Fae heritage, carve out a new path for herself, and embrace her new-found power.

But their happiness is marred by Ninane, the jealous Fae who cursed Conall a thousand years ago. She will stop at nothing to have him for her own, including the murder of Haley’s family.

Determined to bring Ninane to justice, Haley must ask Conall to undergo the ultimate test of love-to stand aside and let her fight her own battles.

Lauren Dane
www.laurendane.com

Disclaimer – this is of course how one author and reader approaches the subject. I’m not an expert, I just write books. Other people write books in different ways so of course, your mileage may vary and all that jazz.

I like writing ménage books. Still, they’re certainly not all I write by any stretch. Only four of my novels are full ménages (as in – the relationship focus is on a triad). There are reasons for that of course, generally I just let the story go where it wants to and sometimes it wants two heroes, sometimes not.

Ménages are fun to write because they’re rife with all the great emotions a romance novelist can use only to an extra power. And yes, if one hot guy is good, two are even better. But, it still takes some work to pull me in as a reader. Maybe I’m jaded because I write sex and read it a lot but just because something is the new/hot/now commodity, doesn’t mean every story is right for a ménage or that the added person in every sex scene can overcome a storyline that doesn’t make sense.

For me anyway, an effective ménage isn’t easy to create and not every story can support one in a realistic fashion. And by realistic, I don’t mean the absence of werewolves or spaceships. The single most important element in a ménage is an explanation of how the threesome would work.

In other words – as I’m reading along and there are these two very alpha guys and one woman, you’d better tell me why a triad would work in their case. Why? Because it wouldn’t in real life. Yes, yes, there are people who have poly relationships and those that work are ones that take a lot of negotiation and communication. So tell me why this combination of people works. Is it mystical? If so, how? Are they negotiating? Show me some of that. I don’t need every discussion, but at least let the reader know they’re all working on it. If a couple needs to work, a threesome does even more.

So sure, there’ll be the prerequisite DP scene and lots of hotness with two nekkid dudes all focused on the woman (and sometimes on each other, which I find hot as well). But it all falls apart if I’m thinking, “and these two guys don’t get jealous?” or even “why? Why are these people even together other than a DP scene?”

Other elements I like? I don’t want every sex scene to be a threesome. I like variety. I like one-on-one time with each person so I can get to know them as a character. Also, don’t make the men two of the same guy or one of the men so much stronger a character that the other just fades into the background. And don’t neglect the emotions! Sometimes a story is all about sex, and whatever, that might be a preference for some people but the strength of adding another primary character is that you give the reader another person to care about. I can’t if all I get to know is his Johnson.

So tell me what you like and don’t like about ménages!

Lauren
www.laurendane.com

Today, book three in my Chase Brothers Series is out! This is Marc and Liv’s story and both characters were way more complicated than I’d imagined originally. You can read an excerpt and pick it up from Samhain as well as checking out the other books in the series. You can also read an excerpt at my website There’s a blurby bit behind the cut!

Blurb: Liv Davis had just about given up on her happily ever after. Burned by love more than once, she’s beginning to think Mr. Right wasn’t in the cards for her.

Marc Chase is a confirmed bachelor and lover of women—lots of them. He’s determined not to fall head over heels the way his brothers have. Until he kisses Olivia Davis and realizes head over heels may not be such a bad thing after all!

Can Liv open her scarred heart for this younger ladies man? She loves Marc more than she can begin to admit but she’s terrified of being rejected again. Marc faces a challenge greater than he’s ever faced before. Making a woman believe he’s more than just a great bedmate—making her believe he’s in it for good.

In the end it will all come down to two days in a hotel and a bet. Can they both win?

In the last week I’ve received two hardbacks I was dying for and gobbled them both up in one night each. Both books featured heroes with tortured pasts, both very strong men and one I regard as probably the best romance hero ever written. Both books had the hero doing really dumb things though and in both cases, I’m not sure there was enough scraping on his part to redeem himself. (Although both books were worth every hardback cent, by the way and both authors are still auto buys for me)

One thing that I’ve been thinking about since I closed the books was how if the hero messes up, and he usually does – that’s a romance thing, he has to make up for it properly. You have to forgive him or you won’t understand it when the heroine does and he’d better be worthy of that forgiveness too.

The hero in book number one (Natural Born Charmer, fabulous book!) was a total dumbass at the end of the book. He acts a certain way in the presence of his friends and then delivers an ultimatum which was very one sided and then when the heroine came to him, exposing her own hurts and vulnerability, he didn’t meet her halfway at all. And there’s another thing he does that made me mad too – essentially, he had a lot of scraping to do and he didn’t do the work.

What saved the end of the book for me was the heroine. Because I’d connected with her so strongly for the rest of the book I felt like she knew something I didn’t and so that one small thing took half a star off my total rating but it was still an amazing book.

In the second book- Innocent in Death, my wonderful Roarke has a big fat blindspot with a blonde ex-lover’s name on it. In the end he gets it. He NEVER is in danger of cheating but I don’t think the suffering was even. Eve is in so much pain in this book, so much fear and insecurity and he suffers a small slice of that. It resolves itself and they’re Eve and Roarke again but I wanted Roarke to scrape, which he didn’t. Hmpf.

There’s the unforgivable for a hero – and we all have our own position on this, our own buttons. For me, once the hero calls the heroine a whore or is abusive, I’m putting the book down. Doesn’t matter how much scraping he does, he’s an asshole and I can’t find him hero material anymore.

But much of romance is about the forgivable dumb stuff people do to the people they love. Romance, at its heart, is about two people finding their way through their natural human inclination to be selfish and be there for the person they love. Forgiveness is at the heart of that and surviving hurts and growing is something a talented romance author can use to make you really love the characters – SEP does this in a truly amazing fashion as does Jenny Crusie.

What about you all? Do you mind if the hero scrapes enough? Is it something you think about? Are there unforgiveables?

Lauren
www.laurendane.com